ImperialFighter said:

By the way...while it was neat that adywan added in the 'missing spar' to the original STAR WARS Falcon cockpit windows, does anyone happen to know why the makers *added* it to the design of the ESB cockpit version in the first place? Just curious.

It was always there on the set of the cockpit for ANH originally , but it seems they removed it when shooting the actors through the windows. Here is the original cockpit from ANH prior to filming:

you can also notice that the cockpit originally had glass in the windows too